Ooh, aah, didn't it look pretty when all those little ships buzzed about and blew each other to pieces in the Star Swarm tech demo? Creator Oxide Games has, as promised, now released a downloadable real-time demo of the Nitrous engine showcase, so all and sundry can force thousands of people to die for their amusement and delight inside their very own computer box.

Thousands of space ships zipping around, swooping, swarming, blowing the heck out of each other--that's what I'd like to see in a 'next-generation' space game. Oxide Games is teasing this possibility with Star Swarm, a tech demo created to show off its game engine for PC, Xbox One and PS4, Nitrous. Stardock has invested in Oxide, and is already using Nitrous for three games.